In the Still of Your Hands
by calliope-love
Summary: Kink meme fill: "Break/Reim. Sometimes just sleeping together is better than sex."


Something a bit different from me. I love writing in first person, but I never do in fic because the characters are so difficult to get a handle on in the first place. Still, this one wanted to be in this format, so here we are. Break's point of view. I hope you enjoy.

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One of the many, many things I don't tell people — one of the many things no one needs to know — is that I cannot sleep when the days run too long and full. I would not call it insomnia, nor would I say I grow too tired to sleep. It's more of a sensory overload, of sorts. When there are too many things happening, when I am doing too much, when I haven't had the time to sit and sort things through, I lose my ability to _think._ Everything turns and turns in my mind, around and around until I don't remember what I was doing only a few moments ago, because there's simply too much _in_ there for anything else to enter and stay. Thoughts pass through my head before I can really register what they are and leave me scrambling to keep track of them while the next wave sneaks up on me from behind, only to be lost the same way. I _forget_ to sleep when this happens. I'm too busy trying to remember how to know things.

It's for this reason that I don't do half the work I should. Once, I could do as much in a day as Liam does, easily, for weeks at a time. If I tried it now, I wouldn't be able to function.

Tonight is one of those nights.

I come aware of myself again to find that I am standing next to my own bed. The overcoat of my uniform is laid out across it and my cravat is folded neatly in my hands, but I don't remember doing either of these things; nor do I remember what I was thinking about before I noticed — my coat? Illegal contractors, two working together, murdered prostitutes, Gilbert's thigh is bleeding but he can run, and I should turn out the lamp and climb into bed and that's a familiar thought, one that I've probably already had at least three times tonight. Reports are due. These I must write myself. I don't know which is needed first. I don't remember which _happened_ first. Sharon's birthday is approaching and there is silk underneath my fingers, a contrast to the aches in the muscles I pulled because I didn't have time to stretch before Gilbert's thigh was bleeding but he could run. It is sometime after one in the morning, but I don't know how much time has passed since I heard the clock; only that I probably did hear it tonight and not last night because I am never awake past one in the morning. Did Gilbert lose his hat? Emily is on the bed. I should turn out the light and climb _into_ bed, and this is how it's going to be all night unless —

The clock strikes two.

I should go to Liam.

Before I can lose track of this notion, I force myself to turn, climb into my wardrobe. The cravat is no longer in my hands. I must have dropped it. On sheer instinct, I force the wardrobe to shift, and then it's Liam's clothing surrounding me. I know this because the coat to my left has the faint scent of the subtle, simple aftershave he uses clinging to its collar. I am intimately familiar with this smell. Aftershave and blood and gunpowder and the lingering smell of a portal to the Abyss, something like lightning, and Sharon's favorite tea and I clamber out of the wardrobe and don't bother at all to be quiet about it. The moon is full and the curtains are just open enough to let some of the light in, because Liam doesn't like to sleep in pitch dark, and in that light I can see him sitting up in bed, turned over his shoulder to stare at me. His eyes are wide.

When he sees that it's me he relaxes, just a little, and calls my name. My first name — the one even I forget that I have, sometimes, unless it's said to me. I miss what he says next but he'll be wanting to know what's wrong, and he scoots to the edge of his bed to meet me when I approach, stopping me to remove the long vest of the Pandora uniform. I had thought I'd taken it off, but I must be remembering taking it off on a different day; I regroup just enough to give him a smile and tell him I'm alright, that I just wanted to see him. He won't believe it for a second, but he'll worry more if I'm not attempting to lie to his face.

"What happened?" he's saying. "Xerxes? Did the mission go badly? There were two at once, I read the briefing —"

"No, we did it, it went alright," I say. "Gilbert. Hurt his leg, but he could run on it." Might have lost his hat. I don't think so. When did I last see it on his head, returning to Pandora after the mission or returning to Pandora yesterday?

"Xerxes." Liam tugs me into the bed, pulling me close and rolling me over him, because his wardrobe is to the left of his bed and I like to be on the right side of it, when we sleep together. I don't put up a fight. Liam is the one person I trust to move me to somewhere I am currently not, and I leave my legs slung over his as he settles me in. He's taken his earrings off to sleep so I have nothing dangly to play with, but I lift my hand to his shoulder anyway, and run a finger through the short hair on his neck. I could never go to Sharon like this. I love her dearly, but she must always know exactly what's wrong, and she'll fuss and cry and hit until she gets every detail and if she doesn't she'll storm off in a huff and blame herself; Liam wants details, always wants details, but so long as I get back to normal relatively quickly he'll let it all just pass away and this isn't silk under my fingers so I must have dropped my cravat —

"_Xerxes._" It's the feel of his hand catching mine that calls my attention more so than my name. When my eye focuses on him properly he says, "Xerxes, what's wrong?"

I take a breath and don't let it out because I don't know what sorts of words will come out on it when I do. I don't know where to start. I don't _want_ to tell him anything; that's admitting something _is_ wrong. I don't want anything to be wrong. I want to exist. The night is quiet and I want to be quiet, too. But he will not let me get away with that, not when I've just burst into his room at some horribly uncivilized hour and then failed to pass it off as merely being obnoxious, so after a moment I put on my best smile and tell him, "It has been a _very_ long day."

Both smile and tone must have failed miserably because he actually accepts this as a real answer, and tilts my face up to kiss me. Liam-kisses are always good and sweet, even the early ones when he turned red and sputtered and didn't know how to move, even the ones where he can't see me very well and misses. I will never tell him that I _like_ the corner-of-the-mouth-kisses. I think he has figured it out anyway. I am never up this late. Under my fingers now is the soft cotton of his pajama shirt, and he moves to put his arms around me and pull me close. Liam is a very huggy person, when he is done being shy with you, and I don't mind because it reminds me that I'm not running full-speed down a broken street, sword in hand, blood on sword, not one Chain but two shrieking behind me, and one of them stops abruptly with a gunshot. I twist just enough in his hold to let my left leg fall to the bed, but my right remains draped over his; he moves one, settles one of his thighs between my own. I am entirely comfortable this way.

Liam is the one to end the kiss, but only to ask in a whisper, "Did you want to…?"

I know exactly what he means; he was just forward enough to slip his leg between mine. I am content to leave it there, but I shake my head, saying, "No, no, not tonight, I'm tired, I —" am bone tired and feel like I have been tired for _years_, and there is still the jolt in my ankles when I jump and land on stone, the air ruffling my hair when the Chain swipes behind me and misses, the drone of noble voices at a meeting I probably should have taken notes in because now I don't remember a word.

But "no" is all Liam needs. He's entirely pleased to have me in his bed whether we're intimate or not, and he knows I wouldn't be there at all tonight if I didn't need him in some capacity. So he puts his mouth to mine again and slips his hands underneath the back of my shirt, doing nothing but touching, stroking, soothing. He's been in bed for a while now and he's warm and good and so easy to close my eye to, and though we've never discussed it and probably never will, we both know I sleep better when his hands have been on me.

I haven't the faintest idea where he learned to be such a tender lover. It certainly wasn't from me.

It's gradual, but it works. It always works. Liam gives me something to focus on, a physical awareness I can't deny. I can forget about the cravat when my mouth is resting against his neck. The movement of his hands is constant, regardless of when the clock struck last, and the heat of him doesn't fade as I blank in and out. I'll fall asleep like this, and I hope that for once I'm up first tomorrow morning — if he wakes up first, I'll wake up alone, with breakfast waiting for me on his coffee table. There will be peppermint tea, because it's the only tea I really enjoy cold, and he knows how easy it is for me to sleep till noon. But if _I_ am up first, we _will_ be intimate, then; I'll wake him with touches just like these, and the first thing he'll know will be me, and even though we've been together for ages he'll blush every time he sees me for the rest of the day. It will be _brilliant._

Either way of waking up would be fine, though, really, because either way I will wake up in Liam's bed and all the nonsense of today will be far, far away. I will be properly Xerxes Break again and I will not care one whit whether or not Gilbert lost his stupid hat, and I might even remember what order my reports need to be done in. I might even do the first one. I might kiss Liam in his office with the door open and he will blush and stutter and lecture me about working hours, and I will go to visit Gilbert and his wounded leg and irritate him just by existing.

For now though, I desperately need to sleep, and Liam is busying himself working the tangles out of my hair with his fingers. Liam knows just what to do.


End file.
